by Mike Brehm, USA TODAY Sports

by Mike Brehm, USA TODAY Sports

Minnesota Wild forward Matt Cooke's three-year effort to reform his game ended on Monday when he delivered a knee-on-knee hit that will put Colorado Avalanche defenseman Tyson Barrie out of action for four to six weeks.

The league responded Wednesday with a seven-game suspension that could also take money out of Cooke's pocket.

If the Wild are eliminated from the playoffs before the suspension is fully served, the remaining games will carry over to the start of the 2014-15 season, costing him regular-season pay.

Considering that the Wild trail the Avalanche 2-1 in the series, he would have to sit out five regular-season games if Minnesota loses the next two. Five days of regular-season pay would cost him more than $60,000.

The decision came after Cooke met in person with new league disciplinarian Stephane Quintal in New York.

Cooke had been suspended five times previously by the league before but not in the past three years because he had been trying to change the way he approached hits to avoid further suspensions after getting 10 games and the first round of the 2011 playoffs for an elbow to the head to New York Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh.

Though he caught a lot of criticism when his 2013 check tore Ottawa Senators star Erik Karlsson's Achilles tendon, the league ruled it was a hockey play gone bad.

Not so this time because Cooke had his knee extended as he approached Barrie.

"Cooke is leading with his left knee," the department of player safety's Patrick Burke said in a video. "After Barrie released the puck, Cooke continues in this posture, furthers extends his knee and makes contact with Barrie's left knee."

The Avalanche's top offensive-minded defenseman suffered a sprained medial collateral ligament on the play.

Barrie had shifted to his right to avoid Cooke, but Burke said the onus was still on Cooke to deliver a legal check.

"While this evasive action might have worsened the extent of the injury, it should have been entirely predictable to Cooke that Barrie would have attempted to avoid contact," he said.

The distance that Cooke traveled with his knee out, plus the further extension of his knee and the severity of the injury combined to make the suspension the longest for a knee-on-knee hit since the department of player safety took over supplemental discipline in 2011. Kevin Porter got a four-game suspension for kneeing and injuring David Booth in 2011. Bryan Marchment got eight games for kneeing in 1998 under a previous disciplinarian.

Cooke's history played a role in the league's decision, too. In addition to the suspensions, he has been fined four times in his 15-year career.

Cooke has the option to appeal the ruling.

Even if he serves the full seven games in the playoffs, he would be back before Barrie. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was asked in Philadelphia this week whether a player should be suspended for the amount of time that his victim is out and said he didn't think that was realistic.

"What if a guy's actually playing injured and you don't know it?" he said. "What if a guy is wearing a short cuff glove and he gets slashed on the wrist and it turns out that if he was wearing a long cuff glove, it wouldn't have been an injury? I mean it's too subjective and the likelihood for game playing would be too intense."